


and I'm not spiritual (but I think you're a saint)

by findyourstars



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/F, Tumblr Prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4778933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/findyourstars/pseuds/findyourstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because we need some fluff after all the angst this season. A collection of drabbles, half from Tumblr prompts and half from my own brain. Prompt #2: First Kiss AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during season 1, right after the cuties have started dating. Title is from "St. Patrick" by Pvris.

When Laura returns from Danny’s, Carmilla is sitting on Laura’s bed with an expression quite similar to a pout. 

“What are you looking so gloomy about?” Laura lets the grocery bags in her hands fall to the floor. However, the plastic gets tangled around her feet and she nearly falls face-first into Carmilla, whose downturned lips twitch.

“Where were you?” Carmilla flashes Laura doe eyes. “I was lonely.”

Well there’s something different. Laura shoots her a cautious glance. “At Danny’s, remember? She’s sick, so I was bringing her soup and stuff.”

Carmilla drops the pout and rolls her eyes. “What, like Big Red doesn’t have that dumb puppy dog of a Zeta to look after her?”

“Kirsch is sick too. They’re talking about canceling classes for the rest of the week since so many people have it.” With that thought in mind, Laura pulls her recently-purchased half gallon of orange juice from their mini fridge and fills a plain mug. She can feel Carmilla judging her from here, like steam pouring off hot soup, so she decides to humor her and explain. “I’m trying not to get sick.”

“But you hate orange juice.” Carmilla leans back against the wall and crosses her legs.

“Yeah, well.” Laura takes a sip and winces. “It’s worth it.”

When she looks her way, Carmilla’s pout is back, and the vampire tips her head dramatically to the side. “What if I were sick, would you take care of me like you’ve been doing for Xena?”

“Of course,” Laura replies slowly, waiting for the trap. “But…you’re a vampire.” 

Carmilla just shrugs and, holding Laura’s gaze, she brings her fist up and coughs plaintively. 

Ah, so that’s what’s going on. _Jealous, much?_ Laura thinks, and she has to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. Instead, she reaches into the grocery bags by her feet and comes up with packets in hand. “Tea or cocoa?”

“Tea,” Carmilla replies primly, all traces of “illness” gone. Laura dumps her orange juice from her mug (she drank like three sips, that has to count for some sort of immune boost, right?) and refills it with cocoa once the kettle has finished boiling. Carmilla’s tea, she puts in her TARDIS mug, which she has noticed is the favorite for her sap of a girlfriend to steal. 

Carmilla takes the tea with a satisfied smirk and inclines her head towards the covers beside her. “There’s room for two, you know.”

With cocoa in hand and a grin tucked in the corner of her mouth, Laura obeys.

//

Laura wakes the next morning to an empty bed, though Carmilla’s warmth still lingers in the tousled covers. It’s hard to fit two people on an extra-long twin mattress, but with time and practice the girls have more or less figured it out.

(LaFontaine teases Laura about “sleeping with a vampire,” but as of now all they have done is sleep. It’s times like these that Laura remembers that Carmilla is hundreds of years old, and as such is a little bit old-fashioned.)

It’s odd for Carmilla to be gone when Laura awakes, and as her mind edges into full consciousness she sits up and rubs at her eyes.

“Carm?”

No response, and she finds the room empty. Carmilla’s bed is still made though, so it wasn’t like she got claustrophobic in the night and relocated (which has happened more than once). Confused, Laura checks her phone. No messages from Carmilla, although there is one from the school officially canceling classes, and one from Danny thanking her again for coming over yesterday. Laura types out a response before pulling herself from bed and heading to the bathroom to shower.

She stops short, however, when she crosses the threshold and finds Carmilla sitting on the floor between the toilet and shower. Her body language is hunched, like an animal curling in on itself, and concern immediately twists Laura’s stomach.

“Carm?” She asks again. Carmilla looks slowly over towards her, eyes fever-bright and unfocused, and she doesn’t really seem to process what she’s seeing. Laura drops to her knees next to her and presses a hand to her forehead. Her skin feels frigid against Carmilla’s.

“You’re burning up,” Laura realizes with a spike of panic, and she looks frantically around the small bathroom. “What are you doing in here anyways?”

Carmilla just exhales and leans into Laura, who rests her hand on the top of Carmilla’s head in what she hopes is a comforting manner before pulling the other girl’s arm across her shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get you out of here.”

Carmilla is basically deadweight at this point, but Laura manages to help her back to her bed without bashing her head on anything. Carmilla collapses against her pillows and lets out a soft moan, while Laura hovers nearby, chewing on her lower lip.

“Okay. Okay. Tylenol. Can vampires take Tylenol?” She worries aloud, and briefly considers googling it.

But Carmilla’s fever is high enough that she’s completely out of it, so Laura decides to go for it. After a little wrangling, she manages to get a dazed Carmilla to swallow two pills and some water. (Does she need to hydrate her with water or blood? So many things no one ever told her about having a vampire girlfriend. She sends LaFontaine a text asking vaguely about vampire biology and hopes it doesn’t come across as too dirty.) Just to be sure, she also gets some blood into her, which has an almost immediate effect.

“Laura,” Carmilla rasps from across the room, and then starts coughing. Laura is at her side in a heartbeat, and after a moment of hesitation she sinks down onto the bed next to her.

“How are you feeling?” She asks, bringing the back of her hand to her girlfriend’s face to feel for fever. She’s still warm, but Laura can tell her temperature is lower now.

“Ehh,” Carmilla mumbles, and closes her eyes against another coughing fit that shakes her thin frame and leaves her panting. Laura feels like her heart is about to crack in two.

“Do you need more blood?” She lets her fingers tangle in the sweat-damp curls on Carmilla’s shoulder, and Carmilla shakes her head.

“I’m okay for now. That stuff you gave me should help.” She tilts her head back against the desk with a sigh, and Laura scoots closer until they’re sitting side by side. 

“You should have had some of my orange juice,” she says, mock-seriously, and Carmilla shoots her a very exhausted glare.

“Yeah, yeah, you told me so. I guess I kind of asked for it.” She lets her eyes slide shut, and Laura watches her chest rise and fall to make sure she’s breathing all right. It looks a lot like what Danny and Kirsch and two-thirds of the student body are sick with, although who knows what a virus would do when it comes into contact with vampire DNA.

“What can I do to help?” Laura asks. “I have the tea and soup and stuff that I bought for Danny.”

Carmilla shakes her head. “I just need blood, and sleep,” she says. “We heal pretty quickly.” She pauses, and coughs. “I honestly can’t think of the last time I was sick.”

Laura shrugs her shoulders. “Well, it’s Silas. It would make sense that even the microbes are extra weird.”

Carmilla exhales what could be a soft laugh. “Yeah, I guess.” Her eyes open briefly and focus on Laura, who is pleased to see that Carmilla’s gaze is clearer. “I’m cold,” she complains, and pauses as something like hesitation flickers across her eyes. “Would you mind…lying here with me? I can’t get you sick,” she adds hurriedly. “Our biology is too different.”

Laura flicks her a small smile. “Of course. Lie down, dummy.” 

Carmilla gives her the barest echo of a eye-roll, though she holds obediently still as Laura reaches down to tug the blankets over them. Once they’re settled, Carmilla lets out a soft sigh and rolls to face the wall, allowing Laura to spoon her from behind. Laura buries her nose in Carmilla’s dark curls and lets her eyes flutter closed. She can’t think of a better way to spend their school-officiated sick day.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU where Laura meets Carmilla at an open mic night during the second week of university.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO HOW 'BOUT THAT FINALE
> 
> HOW 'BOUT THAT SEASON ZERO

Laura sees her for the first time at an open mic night.

She’s not there to perform though, God no. She would drop dead of overwhelming panic. No, she and Danny (a nice girl from her freshman English class) are there to see their mutual friend Kirsch, who is kind of a goofball but is apparently quite good with a guitar.

Laura and Danny sit in the front row and cat-call Kirsch when it’s his turn, and he blushes but sings a very nice handful of Jack Johnson covers that Laura is actually quite impressed by.

“That was so good!” She squeals at him when he slides into the seat between her and Danny, guitar in one hand. Danny just punches him affectionately in the arm.

“Never knew I had a sensitive side, did you, tiny hottie?” Kirsch teases Laura, and she kicks him none-too-gently in the shin. She and Danny are trying to break him of his nicknaming habits.

“Are you gonna stick around, Hollis?” Danny pokes her head around Kirsch to ask. 

Laura shrugs. “Maybe for a little longer. I don’t have anything else to do.”

Danny and Kirsch leave after the next performer, leaving Laura alone to soak in the rock covers and occasional bit of spoken word poetry. She’s about to head out herself when the next performer comes onstage, squinting against the lights. She’s a brunette, dressed entirely in black with a fantastic leather jacket draped around her lean shoulders, and Laura catches her breath. The girl is stupid-pretty, and she has a hard stare that Laura finds really, really hot.

The girl positions herself at the mic, and Laura smiles when she sees her guitar. It’s a tan acoustic like all the others, but it has a dark dragonfly inlay around the sound hole.

“I’m Carmilla,” she says, “and this first song is by Blink-182.”

She launches into a soulful rendition of “I Miss You,” and Laura’s heart thrums in her chest like a hummingbird’s wings.

_“Don’t waste your time on me, you’re already the voice inside my head. I miss you, I miss you.”_

Carmilla is one of the last to play, and after the show is over, Laura tracks her down. She’s standing towards the back of the small performance hall with a tall dark-skinned girl, chatting quietly, guitar clutched loosely at her side.

“Um, hi,” Laura says, breaking into their conversation and trying not to step back shyly as the two girls fix her with similar, equally intimidating stares. “I’m Laura.”

Carmilla and the other girl swap looks, and Carmilla looks back towards her with a raised eyebrow, like she’s saying, “ _And?_ ”

“I loved your set tonight,” Laura says. “You have a really, really nice voice.”

Something in Carmilla softens at that, and she angles her body to more fully face Laura. “Thank you.”

“Do you do these often?” Laura could almost kick herself, it sounds so much like a bad pick-up line. But Carmilla seems amused, if the tiny quirk to her lips is anything to go by.

“No, this is my first one. I’m a freshman.”

“Oh, me too!” Laura perks up. “I thought you were like a senior or something, you looked so chill up there.”

Carmilla’s smile grows. “What dorm are you in?”

“Pennington.”

“Really?” Carmilla tilts her head. “Me too. I’m in 511.”

“That’s right down the hall from me!” Laura grins. “So cool! I’ll have to come, um, say hello or something sometime.”

“I’d like that,” Carmilla says, and is it Laura’s imagination or is she looking at her lips? She licks them self-consciously.

The other girl with Carmilla rolls her eyes and sighs. “Come on, Carm, it’s getting late.”

“Right.” Carmilla shifts her guitar to her other hand and offers the free one to Laura. “I’m Carmilla.”

“Nice to meet you.” Her hand is warm, and Laura can feel the guitar calluses edging her fingerpads. “I’ll see you around?”

To her surprise, Carmilla flicks her a wink. “You bet, cupcake.”

//

Laura starts to see Carmilla around a lot more after that, much to her excitement. They pass in the dorm hallways, on the streets in between classes, and occasionally in the dining halls. More than once Laura comes back to the dorms to hear Carmilla’s voice and guitar echoing down the staircase from where she’s perched outside the fifth floor, and she’ll stop and listen from three floors away like a lovesick dork.

Her friends have certainly called her that, and worse.

“You should just ask her out already,” LaFontaine says from their bed, in the room that they and Laura share. Laura is chewing on the end of her pencil as she struggles through yet another night of calculus homework.

“Who?” She asks distractedly.

“Uh, who else?” LaF scoffs, getting Laura’s attention, and she looks up.

“I don’t even know if she’s gay, LaF.”

LaFontaine chews on their own pen for a moment. “You said she’s a math major, right?”

“Math and philosophy. Because of course she’s brilliant too.” Laura rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, whatever. Why don’t you go see if she’s home? I’m sure she’d help you with calculus if you asked.”

It was a brilliant idea, and from then on their weekly calculus dates became somewhat of a routine. Carmilla would bring her own homework to Laura’s room and the two of them would perch on Laura’s bed while Laura moaned and complained about differentials and Carmilla helped her to the answers — with only a little bit of snark.

LaFontaine, to their credit, generally found somewhere else to be on these nights, although not without some sort of parting comment that made Laura blush and stammer awkward apologies to Carmilla, who seemed to find the whole thing hilarious.

Like tonight, for example.

“I’m going over to Perry’s, Laura,” LaFontaine says as they gather their books. “Text me when it’s safe to come back.” They send Laura an exorbitant wink and leave, chuckling. Laura’s ears are still pink when she looks back up from her textbook to see Carmilla with a smirk on her lips.

“What?” Laura says hotly.

“You’re cute when you’re embarrassed,” Carmilla teases, and grins wider when Laura’s blush returns with a vengeance. 

“Am not,” Laura mutters, and hides her face again in her textbook.

Carmilla is silent for a lot longer than usual, long enough that Laura looks up to see what she’s doing. One of Carmilla’s legs is stretched out long beside her, with the other tucked towards her lap, and she’s absently running her fingers through the ends of her hair. She’s staring into space.

“What?” Laura asks again, softer this time. Carmilla blinks and meets her gaze.

“I’m going to ask you something,” she starts slowly, and Laura’s heart speeds up before she even knows what’s coming next. “And you are more than welcome to say no. In fact, I _want_ you to say no, if you aren’t interested.”

“…Okay.”

And in an odd show of submissiveness, Carmilla drops her gaze to her lap. “Would you want to go out sometime with me, on a date?”

“On a date?” Laura repeats. She feels like a parrot, but goddamn if she’s going to mishear Carmilla on that one.

“Yeah.” Carmilla’s eyes hesitantly flick up to hers.

“I’d love to.”

And Carmilla positively beams.

//

They have their first date at a little Indian restaurant that’s very popular with Silas University students. Laura takes way too long getting ready, and LaFontaine is absolutely no help whatsoever, but when Carmilla shows up she’s a vision in black and maroon and Laura completely loses the English language for a few seconds.

“I love your eye makeup,” Carmilla says, and Laura thinks she gives a little grunt in response.

Dinner is…nice. A little awkward. For some reason, all the ease the two of them have while they’re curled up with calculus on Laura’s bed vanishes at the sight of the word “date.” Carmilla is stilted and formal at first, which is adorable, but she softens when she talks about her older sister Mattie (the girl Laura had seen her with at the open mic) and her twin brother Will, who she stresses is younger by eleven minutes. And she smiles when Laura talks about her dad, and she laughs when Laura tells the story of the time in high school when she broke her ankle trying to sneak out of the house past curfew (which was 9pm, in her dad’s house).

They split the check, although Carmilla insists on paying for the fried ice cream that the two of them got for dessert, and they even hold hands walking back up to the dorm together.

When they reach the intersection of their dorm hallways, Laura drops Carmilla’s hand and takes an awkward step back, trying to give her space if she wants it.

“I had a really nice time tonight,” she says, and wants to immediately kick herself because _how lame are you, Laura Hollis_ , but Carmilla’s eyes are creased in a smile and Laura knows she knows what she means.

“Me too.” Carmilla steps forward, hesitant, and Laura ends up folded briefly into her arms before they separate and Carmilla disappears down her hallway.

Laura is halfway up the stairs to her room when she stops dead, feet temporarily glued to the cheap carpet.

“What am I doing?” She whispers, and then adds, “fuck it,” and turns back around.

She knocks on Carmilla’s door approximately fifteen seconds later and bounces on her heels until the girl opens the door.

“Forget something, sweetheart?” She asks, leaning against the frame with an elegant eyebrow raised. Laura swallows.

“Can I come in?”

Carmilla wordlessly stands out of the way, and Laura steps into her room. It’s small, like all the singles in this dorm, but it’s tastefully decorated with a few art pieces and a framed collage of Carmilla and her siblings. Laura turns from her quick perusal of Carmilla’s walls and faces the lithe brunette. 

“I…” Laura closes her eyes briefly. “I’m really awkward, I know, and I’m sorry. And I really wanted to kiss you tonight after our date, but I didn’t want to push you and…” She trails off. Carmilla is giving her a tiny, soft smile.

“So…can I kiss you?” Laura finishes.

Something fierce is glittering in Carmilla’s eyes, and she closes the space between them to press her lips gently to Laura’s. Laura’s eyes close, and she inhales in pleasure as Carmilla’s hand comes up to cup the back of her neck.

It’s a sweet, careful kiss, and it tastes like fried ice cream and the beginning of something amazing. When they break apart, Carmilla’s hand lingers on Laura’s neck, her thumb stroking soft circles.

“I could get used to that,” she says, low and sultry, and Laura smirks.

“Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this maaaaay or may not basically be a transcription of my First Kiss, which took place in the second semester of my freshman year of college. Unfortunately the relationship ended in flames, but I got some good fluff material out of it ;) Hope you enjoyed! Feel free to leave some prompts in the comments if there's something specific you'd like to see with these two cuties.
> 
> You can also find me on ye olde tumblr @ clarkesmech, where I am currently yelling a lot about Hollstein.


End file.
